favorite this postFree Microwave of Mysteries!

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Free microwave available if you can pick it up on Sunday (preferable!), Tuesday, or Wednesday - but not just any microwave! Read on!

Craigslist reader, your life is easy. You've been sitting around your apartment/dorm/shanty, idly drinking mint juleps and occasionally throwing pennies at passers-by in fits of largesse. You graduated college/high school with that straight-A (or C) average, and ever since then life's pleasures have practically been handed to you on a silver platter.

Yes, the Microwave of Mysteries can bring you a world of infinite pleasure and spiritual enlightment! Though it was once a normal white Sharp Carousel microwave (model R-310AW), the Microwave of Mysteries has evolved into much more, possibly through Intelligent Design, possibly through total ignorance. Where once was a large, powerful (1000 watts!) home appliance, now there's a large, powerful home appliance whose display is only 50% functional! Yes! While its food-heating capabilities have only grown stronger while it brooded in my kitchen, only about half of the lines of Microwave of Mysteries' LED display still work, so once you press that START button, who can say how much time is left? What does "_uL" or "J=|" mean? Is that a 3 or an 8 or the "E" from "END"? The Microwave of Mysteries will keep you on your toes as it cooks your Lean Cuisine to tender, flakey deliciousness!

Sometimes it beeps! Sometimes the display flashes cryptically! Sometimes it says "DEF LBS"! Who knows what its tiny electronic heart desires? You won't, because the manual is long gone! But unless you have a very serious short-term memory problem and can't retain the fact that you put your stale coffee in for 2 minutes to make it perfectly, pipingly hot, the Microwave of Mysteries' innovative display will not hinder your cooking at all!

Wow! Your grandmother never dreamed that the kitchen of the future would have such thrills in it!

Commonly Asked Questions about the Microwave of Mysteries:

Q) Does it come with a box?
A) No! It comes with the spinny thing on the inside that gives your food the ride of its life as it's cruelly heated by secretive space-age rays!

Q) How big is it?
A) 20.5" wide x 11" tall by 15" deep on the outside! And the inside is big enough for a small turkey or two bowling balls or at least four packages of marshmallow Peeps (recommended)!

Q) What color is it? I wasn't paying attention earlier when you said, and you see, even though I'm perusing the free section on Craiglist and my assets consist of $3 in quarters and a box of expired ramen, I am very concerned about maintaining my kitchen's decorative theme, which is (choose one:) cows/grapes/beer/country living!
A) It is the purest, most virginal white of freshly-fallen snow. If you were a bride, you'd want to wear it down the aisle!

Q) It is clean?
A) Sure!

Q) Will you deliver it to me? I live really close or possibly in Ayer or Rhode Island, but I don't have a car and I really want a free microwave, or I do have a car but I want you to pay $30 in gas and tolls to deliver it to me!
A) I don't have a car, either, so unless you live in my kitchen, the answer is no.

Q) Will you hold it for me? I'll pick it up on Thursday!
A) No. I will not hold my microwave, embrace it, or otherwise coddle it into thinking I still love it. First come is first served - and served delicious and steamy hot!

Q) So I heard that piece on "This American Life" a while back about the guy who found that all of his appliances were humming different notes, and they made chords together, and that some of those chords were "happy" and some were "sad," and he said that his refrigerator and microwave played B-flat and F-sharp, which made a chord that elicited "active anguish in a context of flux," so will the Microwave of Mysteries ruin my kitchen harmonics?
A) With its pure B, it'll feng shui your kitchen into musical alignment!

Q) What if I want to get the display fixed?
A) You're mad! The wonky display is the secret of the Microwave of Mysteries' allure! But if you do want to get a free microwave and then spend money fixing it, there's a place that will do it! See http://mem.tcon.net/users/5010/5491/pwbrepair.htm ! Yes! Instead of buying a perfectly functional new microwave for $20 at Wal-mart, you could spend $32.50+shipping refurbishing an old microwave! What are you, a philosophy major? Stop spending your money on crap!

Q) Other than the display, is anything else, er, "unusual" about the Microwave of Mysteries?
A) Nothing whatsoever! It's a perfectly functional and powerful microwave that happens to give no useful feedback to its user. Yes, I know, I raised it wrong and now it's secretive and withdrawn and doesn't like to reveal things, and yes, it fears intimacy and sometimes I can hear it crying late at night after the other appliaces are asleep, but trust me, it can still be a stalwart member of your Kitchen Corps!

Q) Wait, *four* packages of Peeps?
A) Yeah, if you squish 'em together a little. Remember, a few seconds on high is all they need!

So, if you can pick it up in North Cambridge, near Davis Square, on Sunday (the best day!), Tuesday, or Wednesday, the Microwave of Mysteries is yours! Free!